


What Is And What Could Be

by Evalangui



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-03
Updated: 2009-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evalangui/pseuds/Evalangui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A number of things that never happened to the Winchester family but that could have.(8987 words)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is And What Could Be

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** 4x03 "In the Beginning" (I mean the fact that Mary and her parents were hunters, not her deal with Yellow-Eyes because with Dean's warning and the knowledge of the YED's return and what her interruption could cause I would have to believe Mary was a complete retard to enter the nursery and since Mary is the only female character in Supernatural who is not a victim, a slut or a evil I'd rather refrain.)
> 
> **Characters &amp; Pairings:** Genfic about Sam, Dean, Mary and a bit of John. Except last excerpt which is also non-graphic Sam/Dean slash.
> 
> **Warnings/Enticements:** Incest, AU, genderfuck in the form of Girl!Dean, Alternate Universes.
> 
> **Betas:** Sorry about the lack of beta, just got tired of looking for one.

 

** What is and What _Could _Be **

  
Dean it's not given to think of what is not. He's a hunter, his mother is dead, his father is dead. He will never have a home beyond his car and his brother is the most important thing in his life. The rest _Is Not_. And then he fucks up and ends up in this perfect reality in which he has a mother and a really hot girlfriend, a normal life with a job and a house and his father is still dead but he didn't die for him, he died from a heart attack (probably in the middle of watching a baseball game or something totally white-picked-fency like that), without knowing the grief and the evil that haunt the world. His brother kind of hates him but he is still his brother and will follow him anywhere, Dean is sure he can make it up to him because in this universe his brother’s girlfriend is not dead and Dean didn't have to drag him after their mother's supernatural killer and how could Sam not forgive that he fucked his prom-date if he could forgive that?  So it's pretty cool, except it's not real and Dean has always wanted to be happy but he can't be happy with nothing but the truth.

Still, when he gets back, not all the time because his life is not exactly boring, but, sometimes, when he can’t sleep or when he and Sam are at the library researching and he inevitably gets bored and distracted, or laying in bed with yet another injury… Sometimes Dean thinks about that world and other worlds and all the things that…maybe,_ are_, some other place.

He was happier as he was before but, of course, he had always known wondering didn't do any good.

*-*-*-*

** There's this one world in which Dean Winchester is never born. ** It's something completely stupid for it to happen to a professional like Mary but she's rusty, the extra weight is hard to balance and she stumbles on the way home and has a bad fall, wakes up in the hospital and there's no Dean no more. When she gets pregnant again she doesn’t name the child until it's born and when she does she uses her father's name, not her mother's, for her Dean will always be her son. When she's killed six months later, her husband leaves the baby with his mother. _He_ is dead a year later, Sam can't be his family, can't be his life, he doesn't even know what has happened beyond the fact he misses his mother. 

When Sam's thirteen his grandmother dies, he has uncles, aunts and cousins but no other real family. He doesn't know anything about his past, he can't guess his future beyond the next few weeks. He just lost the only person who ever loved him, the only one he ever loved.

His aunt and uncle arrange for him to be sent to a foster home. They explain they can't afford a third child but that they will always visit and make sure he's fine. They do, too, for the most part, they show up for his birthdays and invite him over for Christmas. And Sam’s adoptive parents aren't bad. Sam likes them, with time he grows to love them with the distant affection of most children for the people who pay for their needs. He's a sweet child, a good student, but he can't stop fighting his classmates. When asked he just can’t explain the rage that fills him sometimes. 

Nobody ever tells him of what hides in the dark, he's never afraid, and he should be. At twenty-two he's at Stanford, he meets a girl who looks a lot like his unremembered mother and he falls in love with her. She loves him back and when he dreams of her in fire he tells her about it. Words are no use against a demon, though. Nobody's called him Sammy in his life without losing some teeth, he has no training, no knowledge and there are no arms to take him out of the burning house, Sam can’t stop staring at Jessica’s face disappearing in the flames. 

*-*-*-*

** …where Mary doesn't want a second child and they have a normal life. ** Too normal for John Winchester, who drinks more and more as time goes on, not for any reason beyond the fact that he hasn't got a mission, the only interesting thing in his life are his baseball games with his pals. Mary grows colder the more whisky and vodka there’s around. Dean is always out.

When he really gets out at eighteen, gets a job and then a place of his own, he discovers the wonders of independence. He will fuck anything with two legs, he will hustle and lose his pay and drink way too much for his mother's taste. He's happy, he's friends with a few of his workmates. He watches his father play baseball and they watch TV together. He praises his mother’s food and shows up at home often. He feels lonely but he won’t admit it. 

There's no demons, nor monsters in Dean Winchester's life. There's no tragedy because his mother is not dead and his father not bent in revenge and he can date and stay and he has a home that doesn't have wheels. Unhappiness doesn't require tragedy, though, and the emptiness that somehow _fills_ Dean's life, the way he can't never seem to go beyond the friendly into the intimate with anybody. That's enough to start him drinking any old night, Metallica rattling the ceiling, wishing he knew what he is missing.

Dean never offers his soul to a demon for someone else’s. Problem is, he wishes there was someone he would do that for more than anything. 

*-*-*-*

** ..where Dean Winchester is born a girl ** , she loves her baby brother, she takes him out the flaming remains of her home on the last day she's a normal girl and she never looks back. She loves her father too, and forgives him for forgetting she's a child and a girl and a person too, sometimes. 

By the time she's eighteen she's a seasoned hunter who begs and widdles to get Sammy, who's just shot up past her, left out of their more time-consuming cases so he can stay wherever they call home and do normal stuff, because that's all Sammy seems to crave and that's all Deanna has to give. John always falls for her Mary-blonde hair and pleading eyes and Deanna is, after all, more than enough back-up. Until she's not, she's not fast enough putting a silver bullet through a werewolf, her aim is perfect but her legs are, in this universe, just those few inches too short. John doesn't die but his right arm is hurt badly enough that while it's still there, he can barely use it. He tells Deanna it's not her fault, he even remembers and reminds her she's just eighteen and that even a grown man could have been a few seconds off time.

“But I'm not a man, I will never be a man, that's the fucking problem!” - Deanna screams, and then cringes, because he's hurt and in pain and it's her fault. Growing up in a world of men, soldiers, Deanna has only been told not to swear by teachers. The teachers also fell for the pretty smile and huge eyes and Deanna has the foulest mouth of all her family even when she hasn’t got a reason to.

And John stares at her, trying to come up with something to say, and Sam swipes into the room, takes a look at them and goes to Deanna and enfolds her in an embrace. She lets him, she allows herself to be weak, a little bit, for a few seconds.

Their father looks at them and announces he's going to see Jim and will be back in a few days. A few minutes later they hear the front door close and Deanna disentangles herself from her brother.

When he comes back he tells them they are going to be staying at Pastor Jim's while John recovers, Deanna can start going to the local college in the fall if she wants. Deanna doesn't want to, Deanna _can't_, she's a hunter, she might not be good enough at it, but she's certainly worse at school, at anything else. Except… Sammy, Deanna's good at taking care of Sammy and Sammy is, predictably, ridiculously excited at the idea of some permanence, so she goes with it. She even goes to college, takes classes that are useful for her job. Mythology in Modern Culture and Anthropology 101 and even Intro to Psychology because half the hunting is convincing people they are seeing what they are seeing and you can be trusted to help them.

She wants to go back to her real life, to hunting, but can't make herself ask her father to take her with him in the easy jobs he's been taking while he “rests up”. She's spent all her life following orders like good little soldier and she can't just stop now. She takes up a part-time job at the grocery store, men keep hitting on her and sometimes she fucks them, for the sex and for the passion that her life is so lacking in. Jim teaches her to cook and her love of food seems to translate well into the kitchen, but she feels homey and girly and _stupid_. On her nineteen birthday, after Jim and Sammy and her have had cake and done the birthday rituals, she goes out to a bar and hustles pool, for once nobody gets too grabby and she calls it a good night.

She's settling in, getting to use it, nothing is particularly appealing. A week later she finds something not quite right on her perusal of the local newspaper. It turns out to be a run of the mill ghost with unresolved issues and a problem with her ex, salting and burning it should not be the first time in months she doesn't feel like she's wasting her time but things are what they are. Deanna is who she is.

It takes her a couple more months to make enough money to get a truck, the next time her father's home she asks about getting weapons. He gives her her own, out of the Impala's trunk. He doesn't ask. When he leaves again he only says what he always says – “Take care of Sammy.”

Whatever happened the last time they hunted together, Deanna doesn't wonder if he says it because he thinks she might forget. She asks Jimmy about weaponry next, his explanation is more clear and useful, _he_ asks, though.

She makes a token effort and waits the two weeks until Sammy's sixteen birthday before she takes him out and tells him what she’s doing.

“But why? We can be normal now, we have everything… I mean, is it because of the grocery store? Because I’m sure you could find something better and…”

“Sam” – She interrupts, tiredly.

“What?”

“I don’t want some other eight to five job, I want my job. This” – She gestures around the cafe – “is nice and all… I know you are happy and I want you to be but I... I can't stop thinking about what's happening out there, what _I'm_ letting happen because I'm not there to stop it.”

“You don’t have to save the world. It’s not our job to save it for everybody else.”

Deanna shakes her head – “It's my job. It's always been my job and yours too, but…whatever, _I have to_. That's why I got the truck.”

Sammy’s eyes widen - “You’re not going with Dad?”

“No”

“But, Di, what if something happens to you?”

Deanna frowns - “I can take care of myself, Sammy.”

Sam is stubborn but he's not stupid - “Dad always says hunting alone is much more dangerous because…”

“Dad _is_ hunting alone” – Deanna points out. It's the first time she can remember openly contradicting her father in front of Sam.

So she takes hunts around Minnesota, sometimes she goes a bit farther but never for more than a week. She doesn't even realize that if she's covering the zone then their father has no official reason to come by until Sam asks over dinner if she knows where Dad is because he hasn't heard from him in a month and a half. Dad had called Jim to let him know he was busy but alive a week ago and Deanna had assumed he had told Sam about it. She reassures Sam and she calls her father to ask how things are going: what's taking so bloody long? When will he be home? And it's only when John says “I’ll be home when I'm home”, the type of answer he usually gives Sam when he's pushing it that Deanna realizes she's being disrespectful. 

She misses him but, truth be told, nothing's been the same since she failed him. She tries to be understanding, Deanna should have a fucking master on understanding but… he keeps being who he's always been and she has changed. She has chosen him, the hunt, their life and he won't even bother saying anything to her beyond congratulating her on taking care of Sam. As if all her work, as if her scars and her blood and her sweat mean nothing, as if all those people she saved mean nothing. In the end it's easier to get angry, to distance himself from his indifference. Maybe she's picking up Sam's slack because her brother seems happier than he has ever been, maybe she's having a very late teenager rebellion but not a year after she starts hunting solo they have a major fight when Sam mentions college and John gives him a betrayed look. For Deanna that look means a lot more than for Sam: For Sam is just their father being obsessive about hunting as ever, for Deanna is proof that he's waiting for Sam to finish school to take him back to hunting while he won't ask Deanna back. It's proof not that he loves her less, Deanna loves Sam more than anything in the world and she expects her father does as well, it's proof he _values_ her less. That after all this time she's not good enough and will never be. The girl can go to college, where she will be safe, she can go be normal, she can live the life Mary never got to live (the life she's never been told Mary wanted for her), the boy has to avenge the mother he can't remember. When it's Deanna who understands, Deanna who lost the mother who put her to sleep and hugged her and told her stories. Deanna the one who was strong for all of them when her father was wrecked and slept through Sammy's crying or got so drunk he couldn't walk straight.

It took one mistake, one mistake not to make Deanna human as she had often wished John Winchester remembered his children were, but _weak_ and only fit to be protected.

A year later, when Sam gets accepted into Stanford and leaves for California, Deanna piles their bags in the truck and settles in her new hunting grounds. Sam's always there to patch her up when she needs him to, if she's in Palo Alto she sleeps in the second room his flat has, she never overstays her welcome. They eat together, he listens to her brag about hunts, she listens to his lectures and college stories and gives him ridiculous advice on banging girls who are nothing like her. It turns out that without it being enforced on him Sam doesn't mind the hunting so much, if he has time he ends up doing most of her research for her because time it's vital and he is, like he's always been, the bookish one.

She has been lying for so long that she never realized she was shit at lying to people who matter, she had imagined her father and Sam just knew her too well. But as she tries to find someone to hang out with it soon becomes evident that her story about being on a road trip (she's staying) or a truck driver(she doesn't have a truck) or the usual shit she makes up if she's not in a case and it's a social worker (easier to believe of a girl in her early twenties than a cop, strangely)/from the insurance company/a cop (it's fucking California, people better wake up to the 21rst century). She ends up fucking her drinking buddies, which makes them much less interested in her profession but also much less _interesting_. Deanna is gorgeous, she can find a fuck by accident most days. She tries girls next, the grocery store clerk, waitresses. It works much better for reasons she can't fathom, it's the first time she has a long-term relationship with another woman, even if said long-term relationship consists on staying half an hour after the lunch rush and talking about TV shows (Sam bought a TiVo he never seems to use and Deanna's addiction to television no longer needs to be interrupted by hunts) and hot actors and what assholes men can be. Deanna loves the last topic, she hadn't realized she felt those things till now.

She's happy in a way her father's grief-fuelled obsession never really allowed. She is keeping the cake and eating it, she has Sam (she's not stupid, she knew Sam was going to run away to be normal by the time he was fourteen) and she has hunting. She has a home and she has the road. She misses her father but she doesn't talk to him in four years except through Pastor Jim and, more rarely, Sam, and then Jim calls to tell her he's been gone for weeks. Deanna rushes back home, forgetting all about the possible spirit haunting a tool shed. She finds Jessica at Sam's place but not Sam. She's distraught enough to answer Jessica when she asks what's wrong. And then Sam's there and Deanna forgets about Jessica, she turns to Sam and says, for the first time – “I can't do this alone.”

And Sam nods. Dad's not in Jericho and when they get back Jessica dies. 

With her brother in her arms, once more outside a burning building, Deanna thinks she should have known better than to believe she could have it all.

*-*-*-*

** …where John Winchester dies in a car crash when his younger son is three months old or ...where Mary Winchester never hears the yellow-eyed demon in her son’s room and her husband finds the monster and her destiny.  ** She takes her sons out herself before trying to go back to look for her husband, when she enters the living room the upper floor has already completely gone to the fire. She goes back outside. She never forgives herself but she has two boys to take care of.

She doesn't have to look for the same answers but she finds Missouri anyway because she wants to know if her husband's spirit is resting in peace. She can't imagine she will one day need her husband again even in this weakened state. When she gets home from the exorcism Sammy is crying, he's abnormally upset for a couple days for no reason she or the doctors can't determine. That's the first time she knows her son didn't survive that night unscathed, that something is wrong with him, no matter what medicine might say. It takes her a few more years to discover exactly what it can be. 

She tells Dean to take of his little brother like every mother but, the difference is, she _is_ there to take care of Sammy, of both of them. Dean loves Sam and wants to please her but without the _need to_ take care of his brother, to do more than it's his fair share, without the isolation of the road to set him apart from everybody else, he is just Sam's brother. A good brother. Who teases him but teaches him the stuff he can't ask his mom, who alternatively makes fun of him and makes sure nobody else does. Sam loves him too, but he is also allowed to have a normal life, with friends and school projects and bikes.

They don't have any more family, the three of them, but family doesn't end in blood, family is what you make. There's plenty of people in Lawrence, Kansas, who want to be part of the Winchesters'.

Mary, who only wished for normalcy herself, never asks them to go on road trips, she teaches them the family business, forces them to study the theory, to practice the shooting. To be prepared without actually doing anything dangerous. She never says hunting is more important than school or dates or friends. She does it with her best intentions at heart, she is, like her younger son, someone who seeks a balance, who thinks there are shades of gray. She doesn't realize until she's called to Palo Alto to go visit Sam in intensive care, where he's recuperating from second and third degree burns from the burning building where his girlfriend died, that it is not enough. Dean drives her there, his expression tight, when he asks her to explain how likely it is that Jessica could die in the same way John did, Mary tells him the truth, all the truth.

Sam recovers from the burns, and soon after the visions start. He cries when he confesses he had seen Jess' death happen days before, in dreams he never thought could be true.

And it's then that Dean says what Mary has been trying not to hear for so long – “We have to get that motherfucker.” 

*-*-*-*

 

** …where Sam never leaves for Stanford. ** He gets the grades, the scholarship, the desperate need to escape the unorthodox and often terrifying circumstances in which he's grown up. He is the same person but Sam Winchester is not just all the things his father is not, not just his wish to be normal and safe and happy and to have rules that always apply. Sam is also a hero, someone who never meant to be a hero, who, even though he can't help but want to help other people, it's a terribly choice for one.

Dean, John, they want to help, but what drives them, what makes their blood pump is not protecting strangers but killing the monsters the strangers need protecting from. John needs something to vent his rage on, he needs to make somebody pay, somebody safe to make up for the Yellow-Eyed Demon's not paying, for Mary's not being safe. And Dean? For Dean life is his family, there are simpler pleasures too, but the thing he cannot do without it's them, Sam and his father. And monsters, always threatening both, always threatening other people who aren't family but have families, are threatening what Dean loves most and killing (justice killing, monster killing, any killing) combines that perfect objective with the perfect execution that is the rush of adrenaline, the satisfaction of proving superior once more. Dean, perpetually scared and perpetually cocky, unable to wait things out, only feels really safe when he's fighting whatever can hurt him. It's the most dangerous time but also the only time where he is definitely in control.

But Sam, Sam who feels a bit guilty the first time he kills a vampire because they look human and who can't quite forget the people they don't manage to save, even the ones who were long dead by the time they found them, even the villains have Sam's sympathy. Sam knows this about himself and he thinks if he had a regular life, regular expectations, if in his hands were grades instead of lives, he could fail and get over it, he imagines he would never wonder if he could have done better. He's a good hunter for his age, pulls his weight, doesn't hesitate (anymore), but he is an excellent student (for his age, despite the fact he's attended more schools than most people's whole families combined). Sam's been dreaming his normal life for years, snatching a few moments, a few glimpses of it as the hunting permitted. And now, finally in his hands, he has the letter that says he can have it.

Freedom from hunting is not the only thing Sam wants, of course. In fact, there's one thing he wants just as much or maybe even more. 

He can't remember when he started wanting to be normal, to have a home and Christmases and a family that ate dinner together more than once a fortnight. The other thing, though, he must have started wanting it when he left childhood (or whatever poor excuse of an infancy he got by virtue being a kid) and entered adolescence. He doesn't remember the first time or the second, Dean had been talking about sex and girls forever by then so Sam ignored the uncomfortable hard-ons he got while wrestling or when his brother kneeled to look for a lost sock under the bed and his t-shirt rode up or if Sam was distracted and turned to answer him when he wasn't wearing a shirt at all. The way Dean put it, it wasn't just normal like the books in the library said but something to be proud of because it meant he was closer to being a man. Sam couldn't feel proud, he couldn't even stop feeling ashamed of his body's reactions. He was a bright kid, though, he realized Dean didn't think about _him_ when he got hard. Big boobs weren't very interesting but Janice his lab-partner was cute and sweet and very intelligent, it wasn't difficult, not really, to think of her instead. And when they left two months later to take care of the ghosts trapped in a mine Sam couldn't even say he missed her, but he still thought of her incredibly small hands on him. And it was ok, he trained, he studied, he sometimes went on hunts if John deemed it necessary, sometimes they stayed somewhere long enough for him to find people his age he could hang out with. Mostly there was Dean. Dean, who was charming and friendly to everybody but never really tried to _make _friends or stay in contact. Dean, who always came back to Sam, from all his girls, and all his drinks and pool games and car-watching. 

Sam never says anything, he wouldn't risk it. It's not a matter of asking and being rejected, it's not taking a chance, it's gambling his whole fortune on one shot he's too far away to get right.

But then, there's freedom, finally, and suddenly all those things he's been pushing down, ignoring and repressing and justifying as brotherly somehow are there, raging, asking: what do you have to lose now? The moment you tell them he's gone, what difference does it make now?

But it's just that, it's that Dean loves him so much, has loved him always no matter what Sam did, because Dean smiles at him and jokes with him and trusts him even as he insists on protecting him from the harsher aspects of their life. Because he can see how his brother's face lights up when he sees him, how he seeks Sam when he enters any room and often just sits with him watching crappy TV in a motel room instead of going out. Because Sam knows he is the most important thing in Dean's life he can't help but… hope. And now he no longer has a reason to hold back that question because he is leaving and you can't have hunting and a normal life, for the hunter the picket fence is an improvised stake. So it's ok, Sam can let it out now and then, maybe, he will be able to move on.

He's chosen but… deep down where his desire for freedom and home struggle with each other, he's not sure he's made the right choice. He wants a confirmation, he wants to strike out the other option so he never has to wonder if he should come back. He wants Dean's anger to fuel his trip across the country because despite everything his family is all he has and he is afraid of leaving them behind and discovering that Dean's right and normalcy is only attractive from the outside.

Sam enters the motel room he and Dean are sharing, their clothes strewn across it as if to mark their territory, and deposits the letter in Dean's chest. Dean looks up from the TV, curious and surprised and takes it but Sam doesn't give him time to read it, he sets one knee on the bed next to his brother's thigh and leans in to hold his face in place as he kisses him. Dean makes a muffled sound against his lips and then pushes at his shoulders, not hard enough to dislodge him but hard enough it hurts to stay, Sam does it anyway, kisses him a few more seconds, bites his bottom lip since he can't use tongue. Just a few seconds more, not enough to make Dean push harder and he steps back. It's not about kissing; it’s about letting his brother know he is serious.

Sam expected Dean to yell, to be indignant and repulsed. But Dean is silent, breathing harshly through his mouth, wide-eyed and unable to talk, to find _anything_ to say. All of sudden Sam is family and the threat to family at once. Sam looks scared, though, so Dean’s protective instincts win – “Sam…what…?” – Something else occurs to him – “Christo!” It doesn't work and he clenches his hands, discovers he's still holding the paper Sam gave him. His brother sees it and his alarm ricochets.

“Wait” – He asks, knowing it's pointless. Dean never waits.

And then Dean sees what it is and he forgets about protecting because he is furious, he forgets about finding other explanations for what Sam did because he's certain it's something terrible. He has Sam backed against the nearest wall in an instant - “So this is what that was about” – He growls – “That an ultimatum, Sammy? I can let you fuck me or you are leaving?” 

And Sam interrupts, horrified, he can't hardly breathe and he isn't sure if what's constricting his chest are Dean’s fists or pure unadultered panic – “No, no, no, that's… Dean”

“No? What's this, then?” – He shoves the letter into Sam's left hand and Sam takes it. He’s still close, crowding Sam.

“I didn't mean for you to see it now, I wanted…I really wanted you to know, I know it's sick, and wrong and… I'm leaving, I think if I leave I can get over it.” – He braces himself and meets his brother’s gaze – “That's what the letter was for, I didn't think you would hear me out after I…” – He swallows the rest.

The pain in his brother's face seems to be trying to overcome his fury - “No”

Sam waits but he doesn't say anything else and he's still too close, Sam feels wide open and exposed and without even Dean's anger between them he's desperate to get out. He's asking himself why he ever thought it was a question at all when his brother continues.

“We can't” – Dean says, the pain's won out and Sam looks up, confused - “Sammy, we can't” – He repeats, but it's not a statement, it's a plea. 

“You want to…” – He says wonderingly – “You…”

“Sam! That's not the fucking point!” – Dean's voice too shrill, though, like when he's just _trying_ to be angry to cover up what he is really feeling.

“Yeah, it is the point” – Sam denies – “That's what I wanted to know, I thought… I thought I was imagining it but…”

“It doesn't matter!” – Dean insists.

“Of course it matters”

“No” – Dean says - “We're a brothers. _That_ is what matters. We're a family, we…”

And Sam, who hasn't planned for this eventuality, finally admits there are other obstacles, that there is something outside this room that matters. And so maybe it isn’t Dean’s anger that’s the definite reason to leave but this shared knowledge that they want something they can never have. This knowledge so much heavier than Sam’s own desire ever was, and so he has to leave because he can’t stay and keep watching Dean fuck his way through life now that he knows that he’s the one his brother really wants. Sam’s wanted enough (and gotten so little) in his life to know that if wanting something it’s terribly frustrating, knowing you can have it but have to deny yourself anyway it’s the recipe for madness.

** Sam doesn’t leave for Stanford, Sam leaves for Dean  ** and their father and the family they both love too much, in their own ways.

In Stanford Sam grows up, learns stuff, falls in love, makes a home out of a house, dreams a future without fear and lives a life without regrets. Dean doesn’t call and Sam doesn’t call, and John, obviously, doesn’t call. But it’s the way it has to be, Sam always knew.

And when four years later Dean shows up at his and Jessica’s place if Sam’s overwhelmed to see him after so long it’s perfectly normal because of course he loves Dean and of course he missed him. 

Jessica dies and this time Sam doesn’t wake up by her side but on the passenger side of the Impala, to the sound of Dean slurping Coke noisily while he shakes his head in time to the softly sounding Metallica. And it’s real. For the first time in years reality _seems_ real, _feels _real. It’s a terrible reality but reality was never pretty for Sam and four years weren’t long enough to make him believe it could be, not really.

So Sam goes back to his place at Dean’s shadow, so familiar but not fitting anymore. But not college education or beautiful girlfriend or perfect life can change Sam Winchester enough to make up for the first eighteen years of his life he spent under his brother’s care so, not so surprisingly, they end up finding a balance within the adult he is and the kid Dean left behind. They move welltogether, not as they used to because Sam’s bigger now and, although Dean’s as ready as he always was to jump between him and danger, he also trusts Sam more because there’s no Dad to rely on and you need to trust your backup.

The worse thing is that it is home, in a way nowhere else can be: the Impala, his brother, the loud music, greasy food, motel rooms and even the monsters and the guns. 

He misses _his_ life more, all the time, not just Jessica who’s an ache he can’t and won’t shake off but his pillow and his clothes and stupid stuff like the his fucking toothbrush. 

But it’s all gone, Sam might still want it but how could he return to a world of normalcy when he’s received such obvious proof that he doesn’t belong there? The road is safe, not for him, but for anybody he might love. His father’s gone, not dead but beyond his reach and it’s the first time Sam has ever understood him. It’s Dean, for once, who’s out of the loop. It’s not exactly a place Sam ever wished to be but the feeling of kinship he has with John is something he’s been demanding of the universe with every 'why' he ever threw at him. 

As soon as he gets over the shock Sam’s natural inclination to act, to fix, to make of life what he wants it to be starts to make him restless, desperate for answers, for a mission that isn’t weekly, for something that has more meaning that simple heroism. So in between hunting whatever comes across, and fighting with Dean about stupid stuff like laundry and fast-food he fights with him because they haven’t found John _or_ the Demon yet and don’t even have any leads on them. Dean’s worried about Dad but seems perfectly content to keep going until a clue knocks on the Impala’s window. 

And that’s how it happens, Dad shows up with all the answers just like Dean expected. And then they finally have the Demon on shooting range, and because Dean knows how to follow his instincts, knows their father, they _know_ they have it in shooting range. And Dad asks him to finish it and Dean asks him not to and Sam obeys his brother because as much as he hates this monster in his father’s body, as much as he sees the sheer need in his father’s eyes to see this end… he can’t be the one to put that look on Dean’s face. 

He doesn’t learn the lesson, though, he can’t trust John like Dean does (no matter how right Dean has been in trusting John) because there’s no reason, no proof. He watches his brother’s face, pale against hospital sheets and refuses to give up on him, refuses to sit and do nothing or follow his father’s cryptic instructions that have possibly nothing to do with Dean at all. He goes get the Ouija board, all the time itching to be next to his brother’s bed, as if his presence could stop the internal damage from killing him. He’s too distracted talking to Dean, weirdly elated that his brother is still with him even if he can’t see him, and then trying to figure out how to put off the Reaper to see what’s happening right under his nose. And suddenly, for no reason he can see or understand, Dean is back, awake and feeling much, _much _better than he should. He leaves when John asks, unsettled by John’s softened demeanor and Dean’s miraculous recovery and used to being the kid of the family who’s not allowed into the secrets of the trade.

It all becomes very clear minutes later when he sees his father collapse. That Dean was right, again, that Sam failed them both.

What hurts Sam more it’s not his father’s death. What hurts him it’s that he was starting to imagine that they could connect, that Jessica’s death had opened a door for Sam into his father’s mind. That finally he could look at his father and understand him, even if only because of the shared experience. And now that door is closed, and all Sam feels while burning the body is regret for things that were not. The old regret for all those times he didn’t have a proud father looking at him in school events, all those football and softball they didn’t play together, all those uncomfortable but memorable sex-talks he had with Dean instead, all the family dinners they didn’t share and all the confidences he didn’t feel confident to make; but also, this new thing that sprang from their common need and desire to end this creature that has been hunting them for Sam’s whole life and that, _maybe_, could have led to a relationship that wasn't based on work and Dean.

And finally, regret because he will never understand Dean's lose. He never lost his mother and just now, he hasn't lost his father either, he never had him in the first place. It'll take him a long time to understand that John loved him, to remember the good times that they _did_ spend together (the lakes, the playgrounds, the mock-fights), to really believe they did the best they could and that the fact that he wasn't Dean wasn't a disappointment for anybody but himself.

He feels guilty for the relief anyway, because he could have lost Dean and instead it’s Dean who lost someone and it’s not fair that, once again, is his older brother giving something up so Sam doesn’t have to.

A Dean in pain, is, of course, hardly a prize, he's silent, keeping himself together by not letting anything out. Sam has known lose, maybe this one isn't completely his but Jess is still in his mind and his heart. And he didn’t want to talk about it either, but he still reaches out to Dean now. Sam never could leave well enough alone. He tells himself he insists, not because of the pain of John’s absence, which Sam can’t fix, but because Dean feels guilty too, undeserving. He doesn’t need to stop missing his father, he needs to stop being angry with him, to forgive him for loving him enough to give up the mission of his life to save him. 

And the only thing Sam can do about that is to love Dean himself, he knows Dean doesn't think Sam loves him as much as he loves Sam. The fact that Sam once was _in_ love with him can't change the fact that he also left, with Dean's blessing but he _left_ and Dean, Sam doesn't need to ask, never could. 

Thing is, Sam can’t measure and compare their loves, but after watching Dean once again about to die whatever he had been telling himself about his less than fraternal feelings goes right out the window. If anything, Sam must love him too much. Dean’s fine, better than Sam, who’s still all bruised, but Sam can’t stop touching him. It's not that strange, he normally touches Dean, is part and parcel of their relationship to shove each other, playfully or out of the way of danger, to stand close together and put their arms around the other’s shoulders. Before leaving the age difference between them seemed larger, that’s the only reason Sam can find to explain the way that half the people they meet will assume they are a couple when nobody ever did before. But whatever people assume it was perfectly normal brother touching, even normal guy touching since Dean is so very against displays of affection that aren’t rough and manly. But now Sam feels he might be crossing a line. Hell, Dean probably feels he is if all the weird looks he’s giving him are any indication. But Sam can’t stop, he’s doing something normal like reading or eating or researching in the laptop and he will look up at Dean to say something only to discover he’s playing with his brother’s sleeve, or that one time, with Dean’s _ring_. 

Dean looks weirded out and exasperated, Sam blushes a lot and they let it go. Which is the biggest sign that Dean knows what's going on through Sam's head because Dean never passes an opportunity to make fun of his little brother. Sam didn't mean to repeat his offer, right now they have to find the Demon and Sam can't go anywhere if Dean turns him down but the answer it's obvious all the same. 

Sam doesn't think about it, blinks it away, drowns himself in books and research to avoid looking at his brother. The only times he sees his brother's skin under his hands it's when he can't avoid it because he's asleep. Quite soon, awake or asleep Sam has bigger things to worry about, like the fact that his “powers” are diversifying and undeniably connected to the being they are hunting. Is he part of the plan? Are his feelings and thoughts really his? Can he stop himself from killing an innocent after a life of training to kill? He doesn't really have to try to be himself, to worry about everybody, even fucking vampires. Being open-minded is not a stretch, it never has been, but is that actually good? It seems good but what if what makes him so different from other hunters it’s the Demon's blood in him? What if he’s overcompensating somehow but will just lose it like Ansem brother did? He always thought it was his father taking away his options but maybe he never had any options. Of course, everything in Sam’s life seems to come back to his family, and now that means Dean. If there is something about Sam that isn’t quite right by human standards it’s what he feels for Dean. And if Dean ever really had the same problem and wasn’t humoring him so Sam wouldn’t be hurt (and it seems more likely the farther away that night he confronted his brother gets) then it was just a teenager phase for him. Sam, though, there’s something wrong with him, and maybe… maybe it’s just the first (or, second, really, considering the visions) sign of the effect Demon blood has on people. It fucks up even the most pure of bonds. Sam’s even starting to question his feelings for his father, was he actually jealous because he wanted his Dad’s attention or because he wanted Dean for himself? His knowledge of psychology does nothing but worsen the possibilities. 

It's just too much, the evil he cannot sense anywhere but outside (but isn’t sensing it a sign of recognition?), the love that's the only thing he has left and has been irremediably tainted, the way he feels like a puppet in a game someone’s playing.

Sam’s never dealt well with being helpless, and so he does the only thing he _can_ do, look for other children like him. He’s not sure if Dean staying behind is a plus or the opposite. Ava is such a relief, someone else with a normal reaction to getting superpowers, someone else with _visions_. It doesn’t change anything, soon enough Sam’s where he always is: about to lose Dean, this time the monster is human and believes _he_ is the monster. And the practice must be worth something because Sam’s head is clear enough to call the cops, even though he _is_ worried and scared for his brother because, really, as much as the danger is real, the miraculous rescues were real too and Gordon doesn’t quite compare to all the other shit they have dealt with as far as threats go. So Sam can be, once again, the humaine one, the one that shows mercy when the normal reaction is violence. And the fact that is such a premeditated thing doesn’t make it less real, it’s just a precaution because sometimes Sam also wants to waste people who tried to kill him or Dean. That’s _normal_, that’s how death penalty exists and those people don’t have adrenaline and very justified fear on their side. So Sam’s just being extra-careful, _better _thannormal because he doesn’t know what the demon blood can do to him.

Ridiculously enough it’s then Dean decides they should take a break. Yeah, sure, the Apocalypse won’t happen if they take a break. Sam knows it’s for his sake, though, that Dean’s out of his depth and he wants to hide from the things he cannot possibly confront. Like Sam’s powers. And he doesn’t even know what the Demon did to Sam. Sam can’t tell him, can’t bear to have his brother look at him like he looks at those creatures. So he just refuses and Dean accepts it, Dean wants to believe in free will but Sam knowsthere’s not ditching fate.

Sam has to fucking _beg_ for Dean to promise, even though he already promised Dad and Sam bets _he_ didn’t beg. He needs that safeguard, even though he can see what it does to Dean, just _thinking_ about it, and he’s so relieved, so grateful, he loves him so much at that moment for giving him the only thing he needs or, at least, the closest Dean can get. He probably shouldn’t kiss him, though. The next morning, he doesn’t dare remind Dean of his promise even though he knows his brother will willfully decide it was all drunken talk and didn’t count.

There’s no need, though, after the angel that’s not an angel Dean says it – “I’m watching out for you” and Sam pauses, just a second – “Yeah, I know you are”. And it’s not enough, that’s the truth, Dean is not enough protection against becoming a demon but _nothing_ short of God would be. 

Meg showing up _inside Sam _makes it all the more obvious how very not enough it is. _She_ makes Sam beg Dean to kill him. It’s hard to tell what hurts more, knowing it’s what he would ask for or that Dean can’t tell it isn’t him asking. He doesn’t see much after that, he thinks she’s afraid he will somehow manage to overpower her if he has to see himself hurting Dean. Dean refuses Sam and he refuses Meg and he refuses when it’s Jo’s life on the line and he refuses when it’s his own. He breaks his promise again and again and when Sam asks him how he could do it Dean says he will only do it if he can’t save Sam. Of course, he made it clear he would rather die than _not_ save Sam. 

After that, Sam stops touching Dean unless it’s absolutely necessary. He is both angry at him and desperate for that love his brother will only let show on matters of life and death and silly jokes. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid he will slam Dean against something to demand he keep his promise or to kiss him breathless and _then_ get the fight. 

He’s desperate and lonely enough to make stupid mistakes, he allows himself to become close to Madison, even though they will leave, even though he’s fated for something terrible. He just… he just wants something good, something pure and right and… And he pays, like he always pays when he even dares to skirt normality.

++

In the end (after the end, _his_ end) it’s anger that tips over the balance, there’s more to it than anger, of course, but mostly Sam is _furious_ about the deal, about Dean leaving him alone, because Sam once left him, yes, but for both their goods and what Dean did? Fucking selfish, even if it was so Sam could live. Sam doesn’t fucking _want_ to live without Dean. No, no just doesn’t want to, he _can’t_. Dean thinks he’s stronger or more normal or still wants to go back to _law school _and find another Jessica (as if Sam was stupid enough to ever risk it again).

He presses his brother against the Impala’s side - “Dean, I _love _you”

Dean will not budge - “Then you understand why I had to do it.”

“No, I don’t. _I_ wouldn’t leave you alone.” – It’s a promise and Dean seems about to talk, Sam just _knows_ he’s gonna mention college – “No, don’t you dare. You know why I left then, you… we agreed it was for the best. But I’m older now, I…” – He pulls Dean off the car enough to be able to slam him against it once again – “I wouldn’t leave you alone, Dean, I wouldn’t…” - He rests his forehead on Dean’s shoulder, he has to stoop just a little bit since Dean’s standing tall.

“Sammy” – Dean says, chocked off.

There’s something off in his voice, and his fingers are like claws on Sam’s biceps. Sam looks up and around, looking for what’s alarmed his brother but there’s nothing so he turns back to Dean, who looks as scared as he sounded - “What?”

Dean doesn’t answer, so Sam backpedals – “Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t know...” – And maybe he should let go of him for this conversation but he doesn’t, Dean’s deal means he will lose him soon enough, he can’t make himself let go now. If Dean wants to get loose he can damn well push Sam away.

His brother shakes his head – “No… You…you got over it, with Jessica.” – He clarifies.

“I fell for her, I loved her” – Sam says, simply, truthfully – “I never got over it…you. I just… didn’t think about it so much because you weren’t there”

And suddenly Dean seems desperate to get away, he pushes Sam back, clumsily, without looking at his face. It’s the clumsiness that gives him away. He’s uncomfortable, not angry.

“Did you?” – Sam asks, point black.

“Did I what?” – Dean stalls.

“Did you get over it?”

He knows what Dean would have said any other time, had Sam not just confessed, had Dad survived, had he not just sold his soul for Sam’s life. Sam pushes, Dean _needs _to be pushed on this, he wouldn’t talk about what he feels outside a battlefield otherwise, not even when their whole lives are one – “Are you in love with me? It’s that why you can’t bear to live without me?”

Dean turns to look at him, and now he’s angry – “I could _never_ bear that, Sam”

“I know, but are you?”

Dean shrugs - “How I’m supposed to know the difference?”

And it’s such a _stupid_ question, Sam basically_ has _to push him against the Impala, not gentler, really, just with less violent intentions. To kiss him deep, and wet but slow because he can’t let himself lose control. Not until Dean says yes and he _believes_ him – “So?” – He asks, pulling away just when Dean starts responding. His brother’s pupils are blown wide, it could be the darkness but it’s not dark enough for Sam to misread the way he’s being looked at.

Dean doesn’t answer the question, instead he says - “This will only make everything harder…”

“No, it won’t. Because I won’t let you die”

And he doesn’t.

*-*-*-*

** …where everything’s exactly as it is and it’s enough. **

 


End file.
